What is the status of women in Iran? I’m glad you asked. Last summer, Iranian authorities arrested a woman attorney named Nasrin Sotoudeh. Sotoudeh had been defending women accused of removing their hijabs in public (which is illegal in Iran). After 8 months, it was revealed Monday that Sotoudeh had been sentenced to 38 years in prison plus 148 lashes. From the NY Times:

Ms. Sotoudeh, held at Evin Prison in Tehran, told her husband about the latest sentencing during a brief telephone conversation, the Center for Human Rights in Iran, a monitoring group, said in a statement on Monday…

A report the same day from a state-funded news outlet, the Iranian Students’ News Agency, quoted a hard-line judge, Mohammad Moghiseh, as saying that he had sentenced Ms. Sotoudeh to a total of seven years in prison and mentioning two charges, of taking part in an illegal assembly and collusion against the state.

According to the Center for Human Rights statement, however, the first case in which Ms. Sotoudeh had been sentenced appeared to relate to a 2015 trial conducted in her absence. Her husband told the center that she had faced at least seven charges in the second case, among them propaganda against the state, disturbing public peace and order, appearing in court without a head scarf, and encouraging corruption and prostitution.

It’s not clear why the judge in the case is saying the sentence is seven years when it appears to be 38, but in either case, this is ridiculous punishment for trumped-up charges. Why would the UN want this country anywhere near a committee on women’s rights?